


Trying to Untangle

by cookingwithcyanide



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and the comfort is much more meaningful, as some very particular things tend to be, directly inspired by an occurrence in a shitty shitty motel bed last night, hows a man meant to resituate himself in humanity without some humanity, i imagine this takes place hmmm, i reckon theyre both pretty starved for touch but my lord, in which the hurt is "old man fucks up his back doing work", is that thought ever tender affection for your own partner?, love you darlin have a fic, maxwells the one who Needs just. anything really, maybe a handful of seasons into the two of them coming to an accord, which you then translate directly into Fanned Fiction for the characters you play?, wilson is a simple man; he enjoys the simple things in life, yall ever have one Single thought and need to write that down?, yanno?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookingwithcyanide/pseuds/cookingwithcyanide
Summary: Wilson rubs Maxwell's back. It's the little things in life that make it living, I think.
Relationships: Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	Trying to Untangle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhysbees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhysbees/gifts).



> Something I spat out in a night for my own Max.  
> Mon chrysantheme, I love you, I love you, I love you.
> 
> The title is from an Anne Peterson poem about the Lord; but what am I if not the sort of person to make holy words sacrilegious and call strange romance divine?

Maxwell doesn’t appear for breakfast, and stays holed up in his tent well into the morning. Wilson calls him, and when he still doesn’t come out, he ducks his head around the tent’s silk entrance to see just what the hell the old man thinks he’s doing. Privacy be damned, they’re wasting good daylight and there is still a heaping pile of stones to be processed from their trip to the badlands the day before.

Maxwell is still lying curled on his side on his fur roll, eyes shut tight against the flood of sunlight shining through the open flap. “Up and at ‘em, Maxwell. I know you desperately need your beauty sleep but you’ve got weight to pull.”

“I can’t.” His reply is terse, spat past a clenched jaw.

“What do you mean you can’t? We don’t have time for this Maxwell. I need your help getting walls fixed up before the hounds come again. Come on.”

“I can’t  _ move, _ Higgsbury,” Maxwell finally snarls. “My back, I… It’s seized up. Undoubtedly because  _ you _ had me swinging a pickaxe like an inmate for hours yesterday.”

The pained tightness in his voice is enough on its own to convince Wilson that he’s not just trying to skirt his chores, even if a closer examination didn’t reveal how rigidly Maxwell is lying. His venomous glare really loses its acidity when angled up at him from the ground like this.

“Oh. Why didn’t you say anything?” Wilson frowns down at him, but he’s already out of the tent, digging out and setting a thermal stone to warm by the still-hot embers of his cooking fire before Maxwell can respond. He hasn’t moved an inch by the time he returns, and Wilson wonders how long Maxwell has been stuck here in his own stubborn agony, refusing to call for help.

Getting Maxwell to turn onto his front is a fussy ordeal, much to both of their consternation, but once he’s managed it, Wilson sets the hot thermal stone on the tight muscles at the base of his spine. The heat and weight of it against the shooting pain makes him hiss at first, but he can feel its warmth immediately helping leach away some of the stiffness. Even that minute, incremental improvement to his condition allows him to breathe deeply for the first time in hours, head dropping onto his crossed arms.

Then Wilson begins to rub Maxwell’s back. It’s just the gentle sweeping of Wilson’s hands over the expanse of his shoulders and spine, cautiously, barely any pressure to feel where he’s hurt, but… God, he might cry. His hands are warm and sure, they touch him with such care. A broken sound falls from his throat before he can stop it. This is an unknown tenderness. It’s divine. Another sob escapes and he apologizes before Wilson can ask about it, or  _ (please, don’t) _ stop. “I’m sorry- Nobody’s ever, nobody has ever-” 

Wilson is shocked, disturbed even, by Maxwell’s reaction. What a life he must have lived until this point, to need something so mundane so badly. Sure, while in the Constant, it isn’t surprising, or during his tenure on the Throne, but even in the nebulous, half-forgotten time before? One of Wilson’s most cherished memories is of his mother holding his head in her lap in front of the fire when he was a child, stroking his back while he rambled about his day. Not even his solitary lifestyle in his wooded cabin was enough to leave him devoid of his appreciation for this simple pleasure; it is one he encouraged from many of the scattered and fleeting partners he took over the years. The act of soothing, of being soothed, and the comfort of another’s touch- how long has it been since Wilson has had the opportunity to indulge in such a thing? How long has  _ Maxwell _ gone without, in the years and years he spent on the Throne before he wrenched Wilson into this world?

Maxwell buries the next sob that wells up from his chest into his arms when Wilson reapplies his hands and spreads them in broad, soothing circles. His thumbs unerringly seek out and dig into every knot and harshly bunched nerve. His palms knead and stretch muscles Maxwell didn’t even know were sore until he suddenly isn’t any longer. In what can’t have been more than a quarter of an hour- it’s far too short, it feels like hours- Wilson has managed to reduce him to a trembling puddle; has introduced him to sheer ecstasy. Every thread of tension in him has been methodically unravelled, and in the face of it he is incredulously softened. Even now that he feels like all of his muscles have been worked miraculously into perfect comfort, Wilson continues to run his hands absently over Maxwell’s back. The soft scratch of his finely pointed nails through the weave of his shirt, up and down Maxwell’s spine makes him shiver and still more tears well up in his eyes.

“Are you okay? Better now?”

Maxwell cannot bring himself to speak. He nods, face hidden in the crook of his elbow. Wilson presses his shoulder until he rolls over for him, but he keeps his arm thrown over his face. Something in his chest feels far too fragile, far too vulnerable to allow Wilson to see him right now. 

Mercifully, Wilson lets him keep on hiding. He keeps tugging Maxwell’s shoulders, maneuvering them until the high bridge of Maxwell’s nose is pressed into the base of his neck and wraps his arms securely around him. Not quite sure what to do with himself, Maxwell fumbles to follow suit, and settles with his hands hovering just above Wilson’s hips when the scientist hums approvingly. Wilson begins ever so lightly scratching between his shoulder blades again, and Maxwell breathes out a shaky sigh over Wilson’s pulse point.

“There you are, you’re okay. You’re alright.” The quiet words ruffle through his thin hair. He tightens his grip slightly in response, pressing his face closer into Wilson’s neck. In the muted light filtering through the translucent tent walls, Maxwell shivers, breathes, and lets himself be held.

And Wilson holds him.


End file.
